Editors ́ Picks

Bahraini human rights leader arrested, nationality revoked

EDITOR:

Vanessa Ellingham

Prominent human rights defender Maryam Al-Khawaja was detained at Bahrain International Airport on Saturday morning and told by security officials that not only was she no longer welcome in Bahrain, but her Bahraini nationality had been revoked.

Al-Khawaja is the Co-Director of the Gulf Centre for Human Rights.

Once in detention at the airport, Al-Khawaja was denied access to legal counsel and proof of the revocation of her nationality.

She has since declared a hunger strike until she is allowed into the country to visit her father who is has been on hunger strike in prison for the past week.

Maryam Al-Khawaja made this statement to the Bahrain Centre for Human Rights before losing connection with her family:

“If this letter has gone public then it means that the Bahraini authorities have not let me into the country. Due to this, I have decided to launch a water-only hunger strike and to refuse to leave the Bahraini airport. I will continue the hunger strike until I am allowed in to Bahrain to see my father. I want to make it clear that I refuse any and all food or treatment during my hunger strike.”

On Sunday evening the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy issued this update: “Maryam Al-Khawaja was transferred to Isa Town Women’s Prison following her interrogation at the Public Prosecution. She was questioned without a lawyer and spent the night in a jail cell.”

Al-Khawaja’s arbitrary detention and deprivation of citizenship violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and must be condemned.

29.Aug

August 29th, 2014

ISIS laptop shows plans for bubonic plague bombs

EDITOR:

Vanessa Ellingham

A laptop taken from an ISIS hideout in Syria includes lessons for making biological warfare.

Foreign Policy magazine has published an account of what the laptop's hidden folders contain, after it was handed to them by the commander of a moderate Syrian rebel group which attacked a building where ISIS members had been hiding.

Among the finds in English, French and Arabic are justifications for jihadi organisations, manuals for making bombs, lessons in disguise and instructions for stealing cars.

And then the heavy stuff: a 19-page document on how to weaponise the bubonic plague from infected animals.

According to Foreign Policy, the manual states: "The advantage of biological weapons is that they do not cost a lot of money, while the human casualties can be huge."

Comments on Foreign Policy's report ranged from terrified to cynical: "How convenient! Just as the US have troubles coming up with a reasonable justification in international law for air strike operations, a laptop - luckily the one with all the plans - comes up. 2003 Iraqi weapons of mass destruction threat all over again?"

While nothing on the laptop proves that ISIS currently possesses these weapons, as its membership grows there are likely to be scientists in its ranks with the capabilities to carry out instructions like these.

28.Aug

August 28th, 2014

Inside ISIS: Saddam Hussein's and United States' heritage

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

The New York Times has gained further insight on internal structures of ISIS revealing details about its management and personnel, provided by a source that has access to Iraqi military forces and US secret services.

According to these documents the top management was directly chosen by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi after getting to know them from US military prison Bucca about ten years ago. About 25 top level executives, called Walis, are acting partially autonomously but within a joint network of rules and communication. A third of these already served as military officers under Saddam Hussein secular regime, but became allegedly religious after 2003 when the American invasion took place.

ISIS' success seems to be owed to a hybrid structure: its commanders have traditional military capabilities trained at the Iraqi military academy as well as experience in terroristic techniques, gained during the battle against US military, and backed up by local territorial knowledge as well as widespread contacts.

27.Aug

August 27th, 2014

Is journalism still worth the risk?

EDITOR:

Vanessa Ellingham

An American journalist kidnapped while covering Syria says the risk wasn't worth it.

Tom A. Peter, who has reported for Al Jazeera America and the Christian Science Monitor, says the risk wasn't worth it not because of the threat to his life, but because the US is so polarised, on-the-ground reporting doesn't change public opinion.

In a fascinating opinion piece, Peter posits that there is such a distrust of journalists in America right now, that no matter what they report, a large section of the public is unlikely to believe it, let alone change their mind.

After seven years reporting in Syria and Afghanistan, he says that now he can see being kidnapped, which might have seemed a necessary (and even heroic) consequence of doing an important job, was never worth the risk.

Photojournalist James Foley's death has been a timely reminder of the lack of necessary support for freelancers, who are increasingly relied on in the cash-strapped news business.

Whereas in the old days correspondents belonged to news organisations and were thus taken responsibility for, today they go out on their own, 'winging it', sometimes without even the money for a flight home, just hoping to sell one more story in order to make it happen. They certainly don't have the protection of powerful organisations who can airlift them out in dire circumstances. They live and die alone.

Most newshounds would be quick to argue in support the fourth estate - that journalism is a vital part of democratic life. That when it works, it really works: who can forget the searing image of the 'napalm girl' which helped turn opinion on the Vietnam War?

But how can we continue to do so without adequate support for those who put themselves out there, and now knowing that, at least in the United States, the journalism profession has such a tarnished reputation.

Peter says about Foley: "Now that he’s gone, I wish I could believe that such an extraordinary person died striving to inform an American public yearning to know the truth. It’s harder to accept what really happened, which is that he died while people eagerly formed opinions on his profession and the topics he covered without bothering to read the stories he put in front of them."

26.Aug

August 26th, 2014

Call them pathetic figures, not holy fighters, nor martyrs!

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

In 2008, a classified briefing note on radicalisation, prepared by MI5’s behavioural science unit, was leaked to the Guardian. It revealed that, “far from being religious zealots, a large number of those involved in terrorism do not practise their faith regularly. Many lack religious literacy and could ... be regarded as religious novices.” writes Mehdi Hasan in New Republic.

The evidence goes back to two young Jihadists Yusuf Sarwar and Mohamed Ahmed who set out from Birmingham last year to fight in Syria for... actually for what?

According to Amazon's database Yusuf Sarwar and Mohamed Ahmed, both of whom pleaded guilty to terrorism offences last month, purchased "Islam for Dummies" and "The Koran for Dummies". Doesn't that tell the story?

Consequently, former MI6 chief Richard Dearlove calls this sort of people “pathetic figures,” instead of holy warriors or martyrs.

Against this backdrop, Mehdi Hasan concludes: "If we want to tackle jihadism, we need to stop exaggerating the threat these young men pose and giving them the oxygen of publicity they crave, and start highlighting how so many of them lead decidedly un-Islamic lives."

Wouldn't that be a much more prudent way to offer public opinion an alternative seeing the true face of these phenomena, instead of boosting outrage for the sake of sheer and false attention?

25.Aug

August 25th, 2014

Italy asks for more EU support for migrant sea rescue missions

EDITOR:

Vanessa Ellingham

Rome has warned Brussels it will not be able to continue the €9 million-per-month Mediterranean migrant search and rescue missions indefinitely after 260 people were thought to have drowned in the sea this weekend in two migrant boat failures.

It was a furiously busy weekend for the Italian navy and coastguard, working on operation Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) which was launched after 360 people died in the Lampedusa tragedy last October.

Italy's interior minister Angelino Alfano gave a public warning to the EU on Sunday that Mare Nostrum would not reach its second anniversary if Italy continued to be the sole funder of the operation, according to The Guardian.

"The worse the problem of the Mediterranean border becomes, the more it becomes clear that Mare Nostrum must be replaced by a European action," he told Corriere della Sera.

"Illegal immigration, but also and above all the flight from wars and persecutions … are not an Italian issue: the migrants want to go to Europe. Mare Nostrum was born as an operation … after the Lampedusa tragedy. But we cannot get to the second anniversary on 18 October 2015. Either the question is taken in hand by Europe or Italy will have to make its own decisions."

The EU has been criticised by human rights groups for 'playing for time' while migrants continue to flee across the Mediterranean with such a high chance of fatality. A special EU leader's meeting to address the issue after Lampedusa ended without clear resolve.

22.Aug

August 22nd, 2014

Thailand's military junta leader named Prime Minister

EDITOR:

Vanessa Ellingham

The naming of a military junta leader as Prime Minister signifies the lack of democratic restoration in Thailand.

Yesterday General Prayuth Chan-ocha was voted in by a 191-member National Legislative Assembly, which also permitted him to retain chairmanship of the ruling military authority.

May's military coup saw the beginning of martial law and a military crackdown on those exercising democratic freedoms, with those in charge able to act with impunity.

“Criticism is prosecuted, political activity is banned, free speech is censored and subjected to punishment, and several hundred people have been arbitrarily detained.”

21.Aug

August 21st, 2014

Are all-women battalions of Kurdish fighters ISIS's Nightmare?

EDITOR:

Murat Suner

The more radical, extremist and gruesome a person or a group of people is being considered, the more likely it is to hear wishful thinking. To horrify is certainly a crucial part of ISIS's tactic: Assassinating and beheading men on camera and using this as their propaganda, killing even children, taking women as slaves or marrying them, if they want to.

U.S. journalist James Foley was beheaded and cruelly used as propaganda ammunition to send the signal to the U.S., the world and ISIS's followers, and those who are likely to become supporters. As a reaction, Journalists called out not to show details of witnessing video or photo material. As far as this is still possible, the intention is to protect James Foley's dignity and respect his family's feelings, but as well to avoid serving ISIS's propaganda.

So far, so bad: ISIS is acting, the others are reacting. The helpless try to escape, the Iraqi armed forces timidly backed up by the U.S., and in particular the Kurdish army of Northern Iraq, fight back. Amid this tragedy any counteroffensive or good news is rising hopes that ISIS's fulminant terror will be terminated. Better sooner than later.

It is symptomatic for this situation that the Kurdish army's female battalions appear now like a secret weapon in this war. Being that women (and children) are the most vulnerable ones in every war, it's almost an ironic thing, that a female Peshmerga told WSJ: "The jihadists don’t like fighting women, because if they’re killed by a female, they think they won’t go to heaven."

This is not a fairy-tale, and not a Tarantino movie, where women finally take revenge, and nor does the devil hate holy water. ISIS won't be stopped by wishful thinking.

20.Aug

August 20th, 2014

What’s the point of the United Nations?

EDITOR:

Vanessa Ellingham

Syria, Iraq, Sudan, Gaza, Ukraine... What's the point of the United Nations?

Monocle magazine's radio show The Foreign Desk put this question to UN experts in a fascinating podcast this week, asking the question which idly looms behind every humanitarian crisis, of which we have seen so many this year.

Monocle's foreign editor Steve Bloomfield interviewed Sir Nigel Rodley of the UN Human Rights Committee and independent diplomat Reza Afshar on the role of the UN versus the public's expectations, and its historical track record.

Afshar said the core issue is "not whether the UN can handle a crisis. It's whether member states can handle a crisis."

"You have to think about the UN as one part of a strategy for dealing with a crisis."

As for taking action during crises, Afshar was quick to argue that it is "misguided" to think of the UN as an action body, because it is rather a body that authorizes others to take action.

"But it can be a forum and voice to the principles underlining the UN charter," he explained.

The panel also discussed the fallout of the UN's dealing - or rather not dealing - with the Iraq war, and how the dynamic between the United States and other UN security council members functions.

As for the current crisis in Gaza, Afshar says the UN's best chance of solving the crisis would be for member states other than the US to drive momentum in public.

The half-hour program concluded with an analysis of the changing tone and impetus of UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon's speeches.

Syrian activists from areas, which were affected by the use of chemical weapons, and the German-Iraqi NGO Wadi launched a petition to help victims.

On the 21st of August 2013, the Syrian government forces launched a massive chemical weapons attack on the besieged opposition-held areas east and west of Damascus.

The attacks in which the regime used Sarin Gas, targeted several linked densely populated suburban areas and resulted in over 9800 casualties and over 1300 fatalities.

In the aftermath the international community put pressure on Assad's regime and forced it to join the international treaty prohibiting chemical weapons in October 2013.

Despite these diplomatic efforts the Syrian Regime kept on using chemical weapons against civilians in rebel held areas.

Human Rights Watch (HRW) investigated these incidents and condemned the Syrian regime for these attacks in a recently published report entitled "Syria: Strong Evidence Government Used Chemicals as a Weapon". According to the HRW report, the attacks killed 11 people and wounded over 500.